Samoa: the end
We, as usual, did not have any accomodations booked when we reached the island of Savaii, but did know we wanted to go to the ‘town’ of Manase. Bridgette and Scott were headed that way as well, so we decided to share a cab. They were headed to an upscale ‘resort’…their fale had airconditioning and they paid 300 Tala a night. We opted for the beach fales that were 50 Tala per person, and had natural airconditioning…ie no walls. Yup, our fale had no walls – it did have thatched ‘curtains’ that you could pull down if you wanted, but we only did that for half of the fale, because our view of the water was incredible – our fale was literally right on the beach – 10 steps from it we were in the ocean.
Our new friends were only a 2 minute walk down the beach from us, and we ended up hanging out with them most of the time. We decided to take a ‘tour’ of the island with them – and booked with a fellow who was recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide. The tour guide ended up being an interesting 80 year old man, who used to be a geologist with a special interest in volcanic processes. Although the tour was very interesting, at times he went a little overboard with the information, and because of this we ran out of time. It was on this tour that we saw the highest blow holes we had ever seen – so high and strong that when a coconut was thrown down the hole just before the waves crashed in, the coconut would be catapulted hundreds of feet into the ocean. Very impressive.
After 3 nights of paradise in Manase, we decided to follow our friends back to the mainland to another ‘hot spot’ called Lalomanu. Again, we had no accomodations, but this time decided to stay at the same spot as our friends, since it was cheaper than the outrageous 300 tala before. This spot ended up being even more of a paradise than before, and after Scott and Bridgette left we ended up staying there for nearly the rest of our trip. The beach was amazing, and the snorkelling even better. This truly was paradise. Our fale was nicer as well – this one had walls and was lockable, and had a nice porch on it that we spent many hours on. Again, we were right on the beach, with only 10 steps to get to the water. I even got my luggage back here – we never got the full story what happened to it, but it was delivered to us by the airline. By the sounds of it, it never got offloaded from the plane, then the plane did another trip to Fiji, then it got offloaded a week later with the new flight’s luggage. A few minor things were broken in it, but all the important stuff was there thank goodness. And finally, I could take my glasses off again because I had my contacts!
The only unfortunate thing we found at Lalomanu, were the cockroaches – they tended to come into the fale at night. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the roaches had an unforgettable smell to them – as soon as you tried to scurry them away (or kill them for that matter) they would release this TERRIBLE smell and it would permeate everything. It was the grossest smell I think I have ever smelled.
We managed to pull ourselves away from the paradise (and cockroaches) at Lalomanu to visit another small island called Namua. There are no roads or villages on this island, only a few open fales on the beach. When we arrived we found that we would be the only people staying there, so it was very quiet. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were very bad, and they got the better of us. It was hard to go from paradise just across the water to a place where the food, beach and snorkelling were not as good, not to mention we got eaten alive. After our night at Namua, we decided we’d leave that afternoon, but not before we’d walk around the island.
The weather that day started off beautiful, however, it quickly turned overcast, and while on our walk around the island it started pouring. Jim was carrying his camera without a waterproof bag, so we had to seek shelter under some rock walls. With the camera in a dry spot, we amused ourselves for a couple of hours by playing baseball with driftwood as bats, and shells, nuts, rocks as balls. We had a hoot getting soaked while having contests on who could hit the furthest out into the ocean.
As luck would have it, the skies cleared up around 4pm – exactly the time we were to leave Namua. We had wanted to head to another town that evening, but we found out that all the accomodations were taken. So, we went back to our old standby at Lalomanu – our paradise and they were glad to take us back. We didn’t even mind the stinky cockroaches after being eaten alive at Namua.
The rest of our trip was relatively uneventful – after Lalomanu we headed into the capital again for 2 nights, and from here we would fly home. We chose a relatively expensive hotel for our last 2 nights of our travels – just some splurging before reality set in again. The hotel had airconditioning and a pool, both of which were welcome in the extreme heat. We treated ourselves to dinner one night at a VERY expensive hotel (we couldn’t afford to stay there) and had to fend off some barking attack dogs with stones on our walk back to our hotel. We visited Robert Louis Stevenson’s house/museum during the day, but it was too darn hot to walk the 45min up a hill to his grave site – neither one of us needed to have a heart attack on our last day of our trip!
It was so strange when we were sitting at the airport in Samoa, waiting to board our plane to Los Angeles. Neither one of us could believe that we had been gone for a year. How time flies when you’re having fun! Samoa was a great place to end our trip – a paradise where we were able to relax before returning to reality again.
Tags: Travel
Kristin
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